


Put your Rose Coloured Glasses On

by Anonymous



Category: Barbie - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Timeframe/Era, Ambitious But Rubbish, County Fairs, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Frenemies, Gay, Gen, I Tried, I wrote this instead of studying, I wrote this while listening to Lana del Rey, I'm not very knowledgeable about sewing, I've lived in a small town before, In which Raquelle is a small town girl, LIKE JUST, Meet-Cute, Miss Me?, Multi, Mutual Pining, Sewing, Sewing Terminolgy, The Author Regrets Nothing, Useless Lesbians, We stan a queen who sews, ambiguous setting, barbie is such a pisces, bc I want the old aesthetic, but not in america, dw tho the power of massively gay shenanigans more than outweighs it, eyyyy, highly gay, i think, im back lads, im back on my bullshit, in the weirdly isolated town nearby, maybe theres some inaccuracies, oo new chapter, shy baby, so uh, wasn't kidding about the passion for fashion thing, who's too scared to make friends, with an avid passion for fashion, without the old nonsense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27890971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The town Raquelle lives in is small. She has a routine, provincial life. It’s boring her to death.Here in this farming community tucked away in the hills, everyone knows everything about each other, and there is never anything new or interesting for them to know about. The same stories and the same gossip are recycled a thousand times.However, there is one thing that nobody here knows anything about; The Roberts Mansion at the bottom of the hill.|||Small-town/City native AU, in which Barbie is new to the countryside, and Raquelle has been there since birth, curious about all the impossible things life throws at her.
Relationships: Raquelle/Barbie Roberts
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Downhill

The town Raquelle lives in is small. She has a routine, provincial life. It’s boring her to death.

Here in this farming community tucked away in the hills, everyone knows everything about each other, and there is never anything new or interesting for them to know about. The same stories and the same gossip are recycled a thousand times.

However, there is one thing that nobody here knows anything about; The Roberts Mansion at the bottom of the hill.

Theirs is a small, shy, tight-knit community. They have never ventured outside of the hilly highlands of their birth, even when the yields were bad and the blizzards were strong and news of state colleges and scholarships came in the paper. They know all of this land by heart, but there remains one place they are unaware of. 

The Roberts Mansion. 

Its looming pearlescent facade and paved driveway with its high gates stands in stark contrast to the lonely backcountry road that the postman takes to deliver the mail and the paper.

Raquelle swears she sees a girl roaming the grounds, and entertains a pipe dream that she’d like to go there someday. 

The County Fair is a special occasion, and few people ever go. It’s a 50 mile drive, and the much-beloved beat-up truck the mayor’s son owns can barely go over 30 in its sad state. For the first time in nearly 4 years, Raquelle is excited to go. 

She looks through her full closet a week before; it’s bursting at the seams with all the clothes she’s scrounged up from older girls over the years. She remembers each one, the hours spent hemming and darning them with Nikki, the days of roaming fabric stores and older townspeople’s trinkets from days long past with Teresa, arguing with them both but loving the (stupid) quality time they spent together all the same.

There’s plenty of what Nikki calls ‘passable’ dresses, but nothing that seems ‘fancy’ enough to wear to something as important as the fair. Raquelle walks off to the border hill, sitting on a tree stump and staring out into the open, fresh air. Someone had gone to the city once, and he had told her that city air was horribly smoky and humid, nothing like the air Raquelle had breathed all her life.

There’s a pretty clump of dahlias and primroses, they grow near the rocky bed by the old rusted car that sank into the ground decades ago. Raquelle picks herself a few, enough to hold in both hands and spin around wistfully while daydreaming. She imagines what life would’ve been like if she’d been a city girl, probably full of fancy clothes and trams and buses, and she’d go gallivanting in ferries and tartan gowns at big parties.

She holds out the bouquet in front of her with one arm, fanning herself with the other while she plays out a little fantasy of a city goer handing her a bouquet while confessing.

Her dress is awfully long and an atrocious shade of red, but in her imagination it’s ‘flaming scarlet’, cut to knee length and trimmed with lace. She can see herself with a friend, going to the theatre or to the park, walking a cute poodle like the ones that came printed on the dresses her aunt gave her when she was young and still visited town.

One of the flowers is jostled free and gets swept away in the wind, drifting away downhill. Raquelle doesn’t bother with going to fetch it, surely anyone who sees it will just assume that it came loose from the tree.

She doesn’t notice a blur in the distance, of someone out in the grand lawn of The Roberts Mansion, who plucks the little primrose off the grass and stares up the hill in silence.

  
  
  
  



	2. Little Bo Peep has lost her Sheep (and found a friend)

“What on earth do you mean,‘mini’?” 

Nikki barely holds back her giggles.

“It’s the thing now. Skirts so short, you can forget about just seeing your knees, you can see thigh too.” 

Raquelle huffs at such a nonsensical notion. _Why would anyone wear something like that?_

When Nikki mentions that the idea for them was in a fashion plate from _abroad_ , she hesitates, but soon enough concludes that the British? English? Well, whoever they were meant to be, they didn’t know anything.

Teresa, airheaded as always, makes an offhand comment about stockings and garters and snakes, but Raquelle is distracted. She still has nothing to wear yet.

Rifling through Nikki’s fabrics with a huff, she stares enviously at the dress Nikki will be wearing. It’s a new one, properly new. The soft pink dress with its striped hem goes so well with Nikki that she wonders whether she’ll find anything at all to compete with it. Second best simply _wasn’t done._ Not for Raquelle.

Teresa may not come either way, but her copper sundress - a hand-me-down altered to fit her - is sure to be impressive compared to anything she’ll be able to scrounge up now. Sighing dejectedly, she picks up her purse and ties it about her waist, before gesturing wildly at the door.

“Well, what are you waiting for? I _don’t_ have all day girls.” 

Fondly or perhaps distractedly, Nikki and Teresa meander out of the stuffy sewing room and into the front of the house. The door opens up to the garden stretched out in front of Nikki’s home, and the sprays of dahlias and daisies are so lovely that on more than one occasion, Teresa and her creative mind have proclaimed that she might very well die from the shock of such beauty. 

Nikki’s parents have maintained the garden since they first bought the home as newlyweds, and the little fairy-like path leading to the pond gives Raquelle an idea. 

Once the three of them bustle into the fabric store, Raquelle dashes off to the organza rolled up in the corner Mrs.McKinley sets aside for brides. The gauzy fabric shimmers in the light as she looks over it appraisingly, and she nods to herself before grabbing armfuls of Taffeta as well. 

She’s been saving up her pocket money for a while now, and she’s certainly overdue for a new dress. For this one ‘special occasion’, she’ll allow herself to splurge. Mrs.McKinley rings them up cheerfully, and Raquelle bids her shopping partners a hasty goodbye. The minute she’s through the door of her own home, she runs right past her brother and straight up to her room. 

Yanking an old poodle dress out of the back shelves, she cuts it to knee length and hems it so the edges don’t fray, before ripping out the embroidery of the poodle altogether. Layering the pretty fabrics, she adjusts the color of the final visible product until it’s a deep purple that she truly likes. Grinning to herself, she rips out the seams on the collar and cuts and sews it into a neat square neckline, leaving her open enough to excuse wearing the pretty cable knit scarf Teresa gave her for her birthday (not that she _liked the present,_ it simply proved to be useful).

Now is the hard work, not that she plans on shying away from it. Getting her needlebox out, she painstakingly sews little pearly beads all over the many semi-translucent layers of the skirt, trimming the collar with them as well. The scattered pattern looks vaguely like stars, and when she drapes the fabric on her dresswork, she’s shocked by just how much she likes it. Satisfied that all of her efforts haven’t gone in vain, she covers the stripe of black that used to go about the skirt’s waist with some wide, white, scalloped lace.

_I cannot_ **believe** _I didn’t do this sooner._

Raquelle’s turn to go take the sheep to pasture comes directly the day after, and the grumpy old sheepdog, Brunhilde, clacks along diligently as her horse trots behind the herd.

They bleat incessantly at times, and go scarily quiet at others. Raquelle is much more familiar with breaking horses and training dogs; this isn’t an activity she’s familiar with. Still, she’s been entrusted with it for the day, and she obliges for once instead of kicking up a fuss in her willful way.

Unable to read the mood of the herd, she huffs before leading her horse to the pond at the edge of the hill for a drink, adjusting her bonnet in the reflect she can see shining at her. She takes a misstep however, when one of the ansty lambs nearly slips in while she’s distracted. Horrified, she reaches out and shoves it out of the way, but ends up stumbling over the edge of the hill and skids off the edge into quite the tumble. The hill isn’t one of the high ones, and the grass is soft and the ground is muddy this time of year, so she is more stunned, jolted, and dirty than she is injured.

Nvertheless, a pair of scraped elbows, two bloody knees, and a gash on her shoulder blade all sting until she’s well aware of their presence. She hears a voice, an unfamiliar one. It calls out to her hesitantly in concern, even as she hisses at the pain. When she looks up from her bloodied knees, she sees a petite blonde standing over her, tears beginning to well in her blue bambi eyes while she worries her lip.

“A-Are you alright? That looked like a really bad fall, so I ra-ran to get a first-aid kit to help you, i-if you’ll let me.” 

Raquelle is startled, but acquiesces to allow treatment. “Just get the - _oh good gravy -_ the scrapes cleaned and bandaged, if you can.” 

Her anonymous healer nods wildly, before getting to work efficiently, and neatly bandages her up with all the gentleness of the doe her eyes resemble. She’s even gracious enough to herlp get much of the dirt off of Raquelle’s clothes and limbs, leaving her slightly off-colour but alright.

“What’s your name?” Raquelle says offhandedly and somwhat awkwardly once help is received. 

The blush that colors her face is _delicious,_ and Raquelle has a half a mind to take a picture of it before the rest of her rational thinking whacks it away.

“Barbara Milicent. But anyways, I’d like you to call me Barbie. Well, Millie is fine too. I just go by Barbie.” 

Raquelle nods in acknowledgement, before offering her a hand. “Well Barbie, it’s nice to meet you. My name’s Raquelle.” 

Barbie smiles at that - a blinding Hollywood smile - taking the hand offered to her and mentioning lightly that she’d like to talk to Raquelle more often. Raquelle very nearly suggests starting conversation right here and now, but of course, the bleating of her sheep distracts her into telling Barbie she needs to run and finish her chores.

“But um, this place, tomorrow?” Barbie says shyly, half hidden behind the curtain of blonde hair that covers one of her eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’ll be at the county fair then, I can’t come.” 

Barbie’s smile doesn’t falter, if anything it goes wider.

“What.A.Coincidence. I’ll be there too! Let’s look for each other, okay? I’ll be in a pink jumpsuit.” she rambles on excitedly, and it’s oddly endearing. Raquelle smiles at her, before telling her over her shoulder while she turns back to her sheep - “I think you’ll remember my face. I’ll see you by the textile exhibition?” 

Barbie smiles. “You certainly will.” 

The trek down the hill is mostly gone, because her horse thankfully answers to her whistle, letting make a decently impressive exit after her unceremonious entrance. Mounting, she tips her bonnet like her brother might’ve tipped his hat in her place. “I’ll see you soon, miss.” 

A cluck of her tongue and a gentle yank at the reins leave them dashing off over that familiar muddy road. Brunhilde has thankfully kept her herd in place even her she disappeared from view. She almost seems to scold her, nipping at Raquelle’s heels like she might do to an unruly ewe.

Shaking her head, she hums to herself before she cries out to her sheep to follow her back home. The lazy thudding of feet on the earth packs it tight so it isn’t as slippery, and the horse’s shoes clank against the pebble-tiled path that greets her as she gets closer and closer to town. Once she makes it back, she is disgruntled to no end at the caked dirt all over her, and hands off the sheep to Ryan and hooks a feedbag ove her horse’s ear before making her way inside the house. Brunhilde follows her in, so Raquelle plucks one of the bones off the kitched table and tosses it tiredly into Brunhilde’s bowl as a sort of peace offering (or perhaps a way to persuade Brunhilde into silence).

Turning on the heat for the bathwater, she locks her room shut and strips out of her working garments. The heavy clothes are tipped into the laundry, and she tiredly makes her way into the bath, sinking into it with a slight hiss of pain against her scrapes, but with relief on her worn out muscles.

The soap and oils she scrubs over herself soon rid her of any dirt, and once she dries off and steps into some underwear, she ducks behind the divider that seperates the slightly raised back portion of her room from the rest of it. She presses a woven linen cloth against her cheeks after dipping it into elderflower water, letting the swelling go down and the flush fade from it’s place high and bright on her face.

Scrubbing a little brush over her nails cleans them off, and they’re cut short and practical, even though she longs to keep them long and pretty like Nikki does. A little moisturiser is massaged all over her sore arms and thighs, leaving her hands - particularly her palms - coming away soft and smoother than usual. Vigourously, she massages some oil into her scalp, leaving the pin-straight raven locks slightly disheveled and slick. She’ll wash it off again the morning so it isn’t greasy. Brushing out the burrs and tangles in her hair, she muses what it might be like to have Barbie do it. 

_She was so gentle_ _…_

Waving it away from her thoughts, she finishes off by pinning it back after sweeping it out of her face neatly, tying it over with a soft scarf. She pulls on a robe over her dressing gown, before cracking her fingers (a bad habit she really does need to stop) and walking the stairs. Ryan’s still in the kitchen, and typical of her brother, she sees him asleep, sprawled tiredly over a pile of letters to be sent tomorrow morning. Shaking him awake, she pulls out her unfinished sewing to sit in the living room in peace with work to occupy her hands. 

The fire isn’t usually necessary, but there is a chill tonight, which explains the roaring fire Ryan’s put together. She puts up her feet, feeling them warm up nicely inside the slippers. She leans over the arm of the couch she’s sitting in, then turns on the radio, letting the soft conversation of a popular comedy take her wandering thoughts and occupy them mindlessly while she occupies her hands with needlework. Hemming some dresses, darning others, sewing her new bustier’s back lace on, and appliqueing pearlescent trim to her all-important county fair dress. The better part of two hours goes by, and the clock chimes nine, and Raquelle tucks away the empty box of danish sugar cookies that’s full of bits and bobs and knitting needles. 

A quick trip to the kitchen leads to a normal quiet dinner, the kind she and her brother have grown accustomed to on such nights when they’re both tired out of their minds. The potatoes are soft and the casserole is as easy on the eyes as it is on the stomach. The last bite leaves them both half-ready to fall asleep right then and there. 

With a grunt that served to be communcication, Ryan gestures to the sink. Once again, the plates are clean again with nary a word said between brother and sister beyond the odd comment of ‘pass the soap’ or ‘gimme the rag’.

Raquelle’s eagle eyes are tired, but still catch the slight rip in Ryan’s sleeve, and she vows to fix it tomorrow, either in the morning before the leave, or at night once they make it back home. 

“Rumor has it the Mayor’s daughter has a real blue-riddon winner sow on her hands this year.” Ryan comments offhandedly, leading Raquelle to both sigh and stare off. “Of course she does.” 

He yawns, waving her goodnight and walking off to his room, and Raquelle hikes up the stairs one last time, before stumbling into bed, her thoughts spinning with the idea of Barbie meeting her at the fair.

_I’ll see you by the textile exhibition?_

_You most certainly will._

_I’ll be in a pink jumpsuit._

_It’s nice to meet you, my name’s Raquelle._

_I’ll see you soon miss._

Raquelle falls asleep, but she cannot quite shake the image of vivid blue eyes and Hollywood smiles from her mind.


End file.
